INDIA: Teenage girl raped while she was held as bonded labourer by mill owner in Gujarat

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information from Navsarjan, a human rights organisation working on Dalit rights in Gujarat, about the case of a teenage girl, originally from the tribal community in Rajasthan, raped by a mill owner. The victim worked with her brother for 11 months at a mill in Gujarat as a bonded labour. It is during this time it is reported that she was repeatedly raped by the mill owner, leading to her becoming pregnant. The police registered the victim’s complaint but failed to arrest the alleged perpetrator until local human rights activists intervened.

CASE DETAILS:

The victim (name withheld) is in her teens and was working along with her brother in a mill owned by Mr. Abhiraj Chaundhry from April 2007 to March 2008 in Gujarat. Both brother and sister,were forced to work everyday from morning till late evening. They were not paid for their work. The victim was repeatedly raped while in confinement by Abhiraj – a man aged over fifty years – from November 2007 till she became pregnant.

The victim’s permanent address was within the jurisdiction of Dhambola Police Station in Dungarpur, Rajasthan. On 3 April 2008, the victim and her father, along with the members of the local labour union, approached the Dhambola Police Station to file a complaint against Mr. Abhiraj Chaundhry. The Station House Officer (SHO) of Dhambola Police Station interviewed the victim, but refused to register a First Information Report (FIR) and a case, claiming that the case must be filed in Gujarat.

On 7 April 2008, the victim and her family, with the help of the labour union, met the District Magistrate of Dungarpur, Rajasthan, and demanded that the case must be registered. On the following day, the complaints were faxed to the Collector and the Superintendent of Police of Mehsana district in Gujarat where the victim worked. Finally on 9 April 2008, the FIR (No. I 25/2008) was registered at the Vadnagar Police Station in Mehsana district.

The crimes against the accused, Mr. Abhiraj Chaundhry, were registered under Sections 376 (punishment for rape), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code 1860 and the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 (SC/ST Act) Section 3(1)(xii) (being in a position to dominate the will of a woman belonging to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe and uses that position to exploit her sexually to which she would not have otherwise agreed).

In this case also like in previous cases of caste based atrocities reported by the AHRC, the police in this case also dropped Section 3(2)(v) (commits any offence under the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) punishable with imprisonment for a term of ten years or more against a person or property on the ground that such person is a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe or such property belongs to such member, shall be punishable with imprisonment for life and with fine) of the SC/ST Act from the charges. This Section of the SC/ST Act mandates life imprisonment for offenses committed against members of the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. Furthermore, the police failed to arrest the accused until the local human rights activists on 3 May 2008 visited the relevant state government authorities calling for the arrest of the accused and the protection of the victim.

The accused, Abhiraj, offered the victim and her family INR 50,000 (USD 1,190) to keep silent.  This offer was refused by the victim, as the victim wants justice before the law. Abhiraj daily threatened the labour union workers who were supporting the victim. The accused also asked the local Member of Legislative Assembly to pressure the labour union workers for a compromise. Once all these attempts failed the accused applied for anticipatory bail, which was rejected. It is also reported that he dismissed and mocked the allegation, saying that the teenage victim became pregnant due to her promiscuous nature.

The accused is rich and a politically influential person of his locality, which is one of the main factors attributed to the sluggish attitude of the local police in proceeding against the accused. The accused was not arrested for a long period of time in spite of repeated requests by the victim and the human rights activists because of this. During this time the accused used all his resources to see whether the victim could be forced to silence. It is after much pressure by the human rights defenders, the accused was finally arrested on 4 May 2008, almost one month after the FIR was registered.

The victim took medical treatment and a DNA test of the fetus while she was hospitalised at Mehsana Civil hospital from 16 April to 23 April 2008. The DNA report is yet to come out and the human rights defenders are concerned whether the results of the forensic test would be manipulated, a fear compounded by the previous neglect of the police authority. Above all, the victim has still not received any compensation, as well as her unpaid wages, and the victim’s family suffers from extreme poverty. The Deputy Superintendent of Police of the district is leading the investigation in the case.

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE:

On 14 April 2007, the victim and her brother came to Gujarat to work in a cotton farm. The victim belongs to a poor tribal community in Rajasthan. Her father received INR 5,000 (USD 119) in advance from the farm owner, Mr. Abhiraj Chaundhry, for the year’s work of his son and daughter.

One day in August 2007, Abhiraj attempted to rape the girl. The victim resisted and avoided his advances. However, when the girl told Abhiraj that she would inform her brother about the sexual harassment, Abhiraj threatened the girl, telling her that he would kill her and her brother by throwing them in a well.

Late October 2007, during the Diwali festival in Gujarat, Abhiraj refused to allow the victim and her brother to go back home. Abhiraj forced them to work, saying that the advance he had paid their father was not yet paid back. Abhiraj raped the victim then, an act which was repeated until the girl was rescued by her father and labour union activists in March 2008.

Meanwhile, the victim’s father tried to bring his children back home after the Diwali festival, but was refused by Abhiraj, who gave the same reason that the money advanced was not fully paid back, and there was still a lot of work for the children to do. Abhiraj promised to send the children back home on the eve of the festival of Holi. At that time, the victim’s father did not know that his daughter was being forcibly confined and repeatedly raped by Abhiraj.

On March 20 2008, a day prior to the Holi festival, the victim’s father made a phone call to Abhiraj asking for a settlement of the account and to send his children back home. However, he was verbally abused over the phone by Abhiraj, who again refused to send the children back home, saying that the advance was still not paid back. On the same day, March 20, the victim’s brother ran away from the workplace and reached home, while his sister managed to escape on 31 March 2008 and reached home in the evening on that day.

When the victim’s brother informed his father that he and his sister were neither paid nor allowed to go back home, the victim’s father with the help of labour union activists tried to file a complaint with Station House Office (SHO) of Dhambola Police Station, whose jurisdiction controls the victim’s village. However, the SHO neither registered the FIR nor attempted to rescue the girl victim. The SHO took this extremely serious rape case merely as one of thousands cases, and even said that the police cannot run around for individual cases. This attitude of the police illuminates that serious cases such as that of rape which happen frequently in the workplace are often ignored by the police thereby allowing such cases to go unreported or charged.

ADDITIONAL COMMENT:

It is reported that this case is not a case in isolation in Gujarat. In 2007, a 16 year-old girl from the same district of the victim in this case came to Surendranagar district of Gujarat to work at a cotton mill and escaped from attempted rape by the employer. Another 14 year-old girl from the same district reportedly died in Amreli district of Gujarat while she was working in a cotton mill after she was allegedly gang-raped by the mill owners. However, most of the victims are reluctant to speak out in public as there is no mechanism to protect rape victims in India.

Like the victim in this case, it is reported that many young girls from the tribal community in Rajasthan come to Gujarat for work in cotton mills and cotton farms to support their families. They are extremely poor and uneducated. In particular, these young girls are most vulnerable in the workplace, and are exposed to sexual harassment and rape. However, such crimes are hardly reported. This case is the first in which local civil groups have received information from a rape victim who is willing to have the case publicised in order to expose such crimes at the workplace and to seek justice before law.

The Gujarat government, like other state governments in India, denies of the existence of bonded labour, which is prohibited by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1976. The Act defines the bonded labour system as a system of forced, or partly forced, labour under which a debtor enters or has, or is presumed to have, entered into an agreement with a creditor to the effect that, (i) in consideration of an advance obtained by him, (v) by reason of his birth in any particular caste or community, he would (1) render, by himself or through any member of his family, or any person dependent on him, labour or service to the creditor, or for the benefit of the creditor, for a specified period or for an unspecified period, either without wages or for nominal wages, or (2) forfeit the freedom of employment or other means of livelihood for a specified period or for an unspecified period, or (3) forfeit the right to move freely throughout the territory of India.

The victims of bonded labour are often members of the Scheduled Castes or Tribes. The members of these communities who often face caste based discrimination fail to find jobs that would earn them a decent livelihood. Their children are prevented from attending schools in villages denying them their fundamental right to education. While at the same time their parents find it difficult to find a day’s meal with their work, since most of them will not be paid for their work. Cast away to do menial jobs with which a family is not able to survive and their children forced out from schools, unless an active human rights organisation or other civil society group come to their rescue, these families end up in utter poverty, which force the parents to ask their children also to work. Millions of individuals in India who are discounted by the society as untouchable or polluted merely because of their ‘low caste’ origin face similar situation in India. The victim in this case and her family is just one among them.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the authorities named below expressing your concern in this case. Please urge the authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into a case. Please also urge them to ensure that appropriate compensation is paid to the victim.

The AHRC has also written separate letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against woman calling for intervention in the case.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER